Phosphorus mining

All commercially used phosphorous compounds are derived from phosphate rocks. Some deposits accumulated have billions of tons of phosphate, for example the Phos-poria deposit of the western USA and Morocco. Large deposits are also found in Australia, China, Florida, and the Kola Peninsula. The deposits of Christmas Island are of guano origin and are rapidly being depleted by over-use, though other reserves of phosphate ore should last for a thousand years. Globally, over 75 million tons of such rocks, containing about 15 million tons of P, are mined annually. About 95% of this output is destined directly for the food chain, with 90% as fertilizers and 4% in the form of different additives to livestock fodder (3.4%) or human foodstuffs (0.7%). About 4.5% of mined phosphorus is used... 

Phosphorus [7723-14-0] is a nonmetaUic element having widespread occurrence in nature as phosphate compounds (see Phosphoric acid and phosphates). Fluorapatite [1306-03-4], Ca F(P0 2> is the primary mineral in phosphate rock ores from which useful phosphoms compounds (qv) ate produced. The recovery from the ore into commercial chemicals is accompHshed by two routes the electric furnace process, which yields elemental phosphoms and the wet acid process, which generates phosphoric acid. The former is discussed herein (see Furnaces, electric). Less than 10% of the phosphate rock mined in the world is processed in electric furnaces. Over 90% is processed by the wet process, used primarily to make fertilisers (qv). 

Table 4-1 Response of phosphorus cycle to mining output. Phosphorus amounts are given in TgP (1 Tg = 10 g). Initial contents and fluxes as in Fig. 4-7 (system at steady state). In addition, a perturbation is introduced by the flux from reservoir 7 (mineable phosphorus) to reservoir 2 (land phosphorus), which is given by 12 exp(0.07t) in units of Tg P/yr...

The element phosphorus, like nitrogen, is essential to plant and animal life. Although phosphorus was not identified and isolated until 1669, phosphorus-containing materials have been used as fertilizers since ancient times, usually from bird droppings, fish, and bone. The first phosphoric acid was made by treating bone ashes with sulfuric acid. This marked the beginning of the commercial fertilizer industry. Eventually, mined phosphate rock, a poor fertilizer by itself, was substituted for bones as a raw material for phosphoric acid in the mid-1880s. 

Diphosphitylation of 2,4-0-methylene-D-glucitol (8) with phosphorus trichloride in dioxane gave 1,3 5,6-bis- 0-(chlorophosphitc) 9 (99.5%). Its amination with diethyla-mine in benzene-diethyl ether afforded the corresponding bis-amidophosphites 10. Their reaction with sulfur afforded three P-diastereomers of cyclic thiophosphate 11 in 24.8, 4.8, and 19.5% yields (Scheme 4) [19],... 

In the control area, Lombador, the phosphorus, an essential element in plants nutrition, presents, in the relationsoil-plant, a different behavior from the other areas. This can be related to the substratum rock in the Lombador area which is composed of metassediments (turbidites) and are not included in Volcano Sedimentary Complex as the other areas where mining works have occurred. 

The major elements Mg, Ca, Al, K does not presented significant differences between the areas showing some independency of mining effects in these soil-plant systems. Phosphorus presents a different behavior between control and mining areas what may be related with parent material differences or plant physiology. 

The global phosphate system is described in Figure 7.10 (Lasaga, 1980). Table 7.1 gives the amounts held by each reservoir, and Table 7.2 the fluxes between reservoirs. Assuming steady-state, calculate the evolution of the world phosphate system if 10000 x 109 kg of phosphorus from fertilizer (mined from an isolated reservoir) were dumped on land in a short period of time. 

Martinez MA, Sanchez de la Torre C, Almarza E. 2002. Simultaneous determination of viloxazine, venlafaxine, imipra-mine, desipramine, sertraline, and amoxapine in whole blood comparison of two extraction/cleanup procedures for capillary gas chromatography with nitrogen-phosphorus detection. J Anal Toxicol 26 296. 

The ultimate sources of nitrogen and phosphorus causing cultural eutrophication are industrial N2 fixation, fossil-fuel burning, and the mining of phosphorite. The nitrogen and phosphorus used as fertilizer have three possible 6tes they either enter the food chain, become part of the soil, or are washed off the land by stormwater runoff The nutrients that enter the food chain eventually end up as either animal wastes or dead biomass. Animal wastes include human sewage, livestock manure, and pet feces. Sanitary... 

The basic raw materials used by the phosphorus chemicals, phosphates, and phosphate fertilizer manufacturing industry are mined phosphate rock and phosphoric acid produced by the wet process. 

The manufacture of phosphorus-derived chemicals is almost entirely based on the production of elemental phosphorus from mined phosphate rock. Ferrophosphorus, widely used in the metallurgical industries, is a direct byproduct of the phosphorus production process. In the United States, over 85% of elemental phosphorus production is used to manufacture high-grade phosphoric acid by the furnace or dry process as opposed to the wet process that converts phosphate rock directly into low-grade phosphoric acid. The remainder of the elemental phosphorus is either marketed directly or converted into phosphoms chemicals. The furnace-grade phosphoric acid is marketed directly, mostly to the food and fertilizer industries. Finally, phosphoric acid is employed to manufacture sodium tripolyphosphate, which is used in detergents and for water treatment, and calcium phosphate, which is used in foods and animal feeds. 

Compounds of the composition [ReOCl3(N N)] have also been isolated with pyridine-2-aldi-mine and rr-acidic arylazopyridine and arylazoimidazole ligands." The products (101) are readily reduced by oxygen atom transfer reactions from Re to phosphorus atoms of phosphines which results in the formation of rhenium(III) complexes. Depending on the reaction condition and the phosphines used either mononuclear or binuclear compounds are formed." " Azo splitting reactions with arylazopyridines give access to arylimido and binuclear oxo/imido com-plexes. "" ... 

This chapter is concerned with the three primary nutrients making up most fertilizers nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The usual sources of nitrogen are ammonia, ammonium nitrate, urea, and ammonium sulfate. Phosphorus is obtained from phosphoric acid or phosphate rock. Potassium chloride is mined or obtained from brine and the sulfate is mined in small amounts. Potassium nitrate is made synthetically. These chemicals have already been described under inorganic chemicals of the top 50. Sources for the three primary nutrients are given in Fig. 21.1. 

After the discovery of phosphorus, 66 years passed before another new element, cobalt, was discovered. Cobalt compounds were known since ancient times and had been used to color glass since the sixteenth century. They were collectively known under the name kobold. Miners believed that the presence of these substances in mines was the work of malicious gnomes called kobolds, who wanted to poison the miners. 

MgO, and sulfur and phosphorus content. In some operations high-grade ore is selectively mined, hand sorted and screened, and sold as lump and fines. More commonly the high-grade lump material is removed by hand, and the reminder is crushed and ground before beneficiation. LIBS may be used for chromite sorting and Mg, Al, Si contents evaluation (Fig. 8.12). 

Father Athanasius Kircher said that the phosphorus was made by pulverizing the Bologna stone, mixing it with white of egg or linseed oil, and calcining it in a special furnace. He found specimens in the alum mines at Tolfa (59). Biographical sketches of Father Kircher were published in The Hormone in 1934. (109) and in the Journal of Chemical Education in 1955 (139). 

This technique is now the primary means of producing ammonia, which can be stored in high-pressure tanks as a liquid and injected into the soil. Alternatively, the ammonia can be converted to a water-soluble salt, such as ammonium nitrate, NH4N03, that is then applied to the soil either as a solid or in solution. The mining of other nutrients, such as phosphorus and potassium, still remains an important endeavor. 

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